As a second child myself I vowed to take as many pictures of Baby Bunches as I did of Mini Bunches (there are literally only 8 pictures of me from birth to age 18 and I wanted to spare Baby B that same disappointment). And I was doing a decent job of it, especially with the monthly shots. But then the 8-month mark hit and I didn’t have the onesie made, and we were traveling, yada, yada, yada. And then here we are. He’s almost a year old and I’m playing catch up. Such is life. At least I got back on track for month 9.

Such a good-natured kid. I can’t believe it’s almost been a year.

He’s getting harder to take pictures of–he’s always on the go and as soon as I pick up my phone or camera, then it’s all he wants. Good thing we only have one monthly left (and yes–there is an 11-month shot, but who knows when I’ll get it done).

We didn’t know exactly when we wanted to make this announcement, but given Sir Branson’s recent christening, we finally decided it was time. You see, we’ve been saving for years in order to give our kids the ultimate life experience: space travel. And now we’ve finally heard from Virgin Galactic and it’s official! Mini B and Baby B are going to be two of the first commercial astronauts!!

We’ve taken out second mortgages on our properties and sunk all our savings into their $250,000 tickets, but it will all be worth it 15 years from now when they board the USS Unity and head off on the biggest adventure of the 21st century.

So there it is–our secret’s out of the bag. Phew.

Oh, and one more thing: HAPPY APRIL FOOL’s DAY!!!!

But can you believe that some people really have already spent $250k on this?!

This kid is growing so dang fast! And this was the biggest milestone month yet . . .

He’s been working on crawling for some time now and he finally put it all together on his seven-month birthday. And what’s really amazing is his progress since then–in less than 2 weeks he’s already started zipping around, easily sitting up on his own, and even pulling up to stand. Which meant his crib has been lowered and we now have to watch him like a hawk. He’s much more reckless than his big sister ever was. And he’s way more interested in all the off-limits stuff (outlets, cabinets, little things). But he’s still sooooo happy and chill (except for a mild case of stranger danger), and even puts himself to sleep and then sleeps in huge 6-10 hour chunks. Sigh.

He cut a bunch of new teeth this month as well.

And Mini Bunches and I have developed a new sport: baby wrangling.

And even though he’s been attempting with all his little might to get into her things, she still can’t seem to get enough of him. And neither can we.

It was bound to happen–monthly posts were going to get delayed. You all knew it. So stop feigning shock. You know me well enough by now to know that I get behind. At this point way behind. Baby Bunches is getting closer to seven months these days, but let’s relive months 5 and 6, eh?

And some others from his five-month shoot:

Happy baby! The only tough part of his turning 5-months was that he went through a sleep regression. So my blissful 8-10 hour stretches at night have vanished, replaced by wake-up calls every few hours. Sigh.

And now, through the magic of the Internet, Baby Bunches is six months old!

He’s officially a moose. And he likes to yammer on and on about his thoughts . . .

His favorite person of all time is his big sister, Mini Bunches. And the feelings are pretty mutual.

During our latest quick trip to Boston, we spent all of our time on the South Shore. Since I travelled alone with the kids, I wanted to minimize my moving-around time and so we limited ourselves to seeing family in Scituate. It made for a great trip–we got to spend so much quality time with our family without the hassle of driving all over the place. And that also meant that we had time to actually do something besides just visit. And that something was blueberry picking. She loved it.

She learned the rules quickly: don’t pick the green ones and don’t drop the berries. She kept reminding everyone of the rules as we went along, and she quickly filled her bucket and then helped everyone else fill theirs.

The berries were delicious. If only we could have taken all 8 pounds back home on the airplane!

As for Baby B, well, he slept for most of the picking. Turns out blueberry picking wasn’t his bag. But flowers?! Whoo-boy did he like those!